PDF A Village with My Name A Family History of China Opening to the World Scott Tong Books

Product details Paperback 272 pages Publisher University of Chicago Press; Reprint edition (March 21, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 022663695X

A Village with My Name A Family History of China Opening to the World Scott Tong Books Reviews

• This book covers a lot of ground geographically, historically, and personally for Scott Tong and his family. It answers questions that his parents have had about their own beginnings in mainland China, and about the relatives that were left behind when their parents left for Taiwan and Hong Kong. Scott's journalistic background (reporter & producer for National Public Radio for many years) didn't allow him to write about rumors without proof to back them up, so the research for this book took him to various parts of China many times, sometimes with one or both of his parents. Reading about Scott's research methods made this as fascinating as the actual family history. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Chinese history especially the 20th century. It would also be good reading for students of journalism, anyone with an interest in genealogical research, or anyone who enjoys intergenerational family stories.
• Scott Tong is an amazing storyteller. Anyone who has heard his reports on Marketplace comes away with more knowledge, insight, and concern for the subject and the persons involved. He brings his considerable savvy dexterity to a complicated subject and shines a light for the reader.
  
  I have encountered firsthand his ability to watch, learn, and ask question that bring hidden connections into sight. He uses those gifts as well as his skill as a wordsmith to make this narrative come alive. I read recently a report bemoaning the fact that few Americans seem to read nonfiction. If other writers were able to channel Scott's propensity to watch from above and analyze while he also turns his uncanny sight into the relationships on the ground, then more people would be willing to read nonfiction.
  
  I enjoy Scott's turn of phrase and his gentle humor which he is most likely to turn on himself. He allows the reader to experience this pilgrimage with him and in the process become far more caring about a world that had seemed so far removed that it was flatly two-dimensional. He brings the third and fourth dimensions into play so that we are able to feel the angst of navigating difficult relationships, while enjoying the process of discovery. Thank you, Scott, for brining us along.
• This book was a compelling and enjoyable description of the author's family's journey through key points in modern China's history, and the account of his quest to seek out his family's unique story. I appreciated Mr. Tong's observations and insights on modern China, which is a culture (despite my own background as a Chinese-American) that is hard for me to understand as a whole - How can it have endured such a harsh a one-child policy? Is it really a society that devalues women? Mr. Tong does touch on these questions, through telling his family's story, and I feel I have a better understanding of some of modern Chinese history, along with a more nuanced and sympathetic view of Chinese society.
  
  I was impressed by the fascinating, and humorous, narrative Mr. Tong put together, describing his painstaking research efforts, despite information lost to the destruction of war, language barriers, and bureaucracy. Although I know of Mr. Tong's reporting in Marketplace, he is a terrific writer, and I'm hoping he continues to write more books.
• “This story has to be told in a real way --- setbacks, infidelity, arrests, labor camps --- to humanize what so many people have overcome. It has to be real.” With this determination, Scott Tong has told his readers a captivating and touching story of his family through the stores of five generations, both his paternal and maternal sides, covering a period of about one and a quarter century from the late 19th century to the beginning of 21st century. More than a family story, what Scott Tong has painted is also a sketch of China and Chinese people in general during this period, with some of his family members as the “actors” of many interconnected episodes. In less than 300 pages one would read a simplified, yet encompassing, history of an ill-fated and weak China’s struggle to restore itself as told or experienced by some members of Scott Tong’s family. It is a family story as well as a national history.
  
  The story begins with Scott Tong’s paternal great-grandfather who joins, at the turn of the 20th century, the wave of Chinese young people who are determined to learn from the West or its proxy - Japan the new knowledge to restore China. His grandparents live the period of resistance against the Japanese aggression and the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. The individual decisions made by the grandparents during this turbulent times give rise to very different consequences on their lives and their children. Each of them typifies the fate of a rather representative segment of the intellectuals at that time. Scott Tong’s parents transplant themselves in American and have led successful careers and comfortable lives. Scott Tong, the relentless protagonist of family root searching, born and raised in America, spends a few years in China as a foreign correspondent. His adoption of a Chinese girl is a story of China’s one-child policy from the specific angle of adopting Chinese baby girls, mostly by American families.
  
  Scott Tong, a noted reporter of Marketplace, has written the book with his journalistic skills and perspectives. His story telling is insightful, objective, yet entertaining, and approachable. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand and appreciate what China, now the second largest economy in the world, has gone through in the last and quarter century; it is a story told by the personal experiences of some of Scott Tong’s family members.